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And How to Get Rid of Them: 



DR. C. A. GREENE 

OF HARRISBURG, PA. 




TLe within eoimnuiiicjitioii was prepared at intervals of leisure, amid excessive 
office duties, hy the Author, at the request of 

' JUDGE GEO. D. STITZEL, OF READING. PA., 

/AND KKAD BEFORE XUE ^ ^^ 

Mtimbers of the State Horticultural Association of Peimsylvania, 

At their Annual Meetin;^, in the State Capitol Building, at Harrisburg, Pa., 
January 17th, 1883, and is printed (in part) in the Agricultural Reports 
of Pennsylvania, for 1883, and is now reproduced at a good deal 
of iixpense and use of valuable time by the Author, [pro 
Ikhiii,) and dedicated to the various Agricultural, 
Horticnltnral and Vinacultural Organ- 
izations in the United States. 

Hoping they will (aided by the Agricultural Press) organize committees in 
the different States and make constant applications to their Con- 
gressmen of each District to carry out the within sug- 
gestions. If done, the Writer will be amply 
compensated for his lose of time and 
his expenditure of money. 



'W^ 



INSECTS. 



BY DR. C. A. GREENE, OF HARRISBIRG. PA, 



This coiiiniuDioafion was read before the members of the State Horti- 
cultural Association of Pennsylvania at their anunal meeting at the State 
Capital Building in Harrisburg, Pa., January 17th, 1SS8, and published 
in their Annual. It was pi'epared in the midst of office duties by the 
author, and hence imperfectly written. It was done by the request of 
the worthy President of the organization, Judge George D. Stitzel, of 
Reading. Pa., and is now republished solely at the e.x[>ense of tlie writer 
pro bono jmhlico. 



Genileruen of the Horticultural Society: 

I have prepared a brief essay on insects injurious to vegetation, and how 
to get rid of them in the speediest, simplest, and most economical manner. 
Hoping it may. in some way or manner, so start up investigation that all 
of the agricultural, vinacultural, and horticultural organizations in the 
United States shall so take hold of the theme, aided by the agricultural 
press, that Congress will be compelled to appoint a Commissioner of entc- 
mology, whose whole duty (assisted by competent aids) shall be the col- 
lecting together of all known insecticides, and thoroughly test the virtues 
of them; and make all investigations possible upon the subject of rapid de- 
struction of insect pests. Keep in books (set apart for the purpose) an 
accurate account of all experiments; and, finally, ])rint, in plain English all 
their experiences bearing upon the theme so plainly written or printed that 
every one desiring the information can have it at a nominal cost. As 
technical and entomological terms are not undeistood by farmers in gen- 
eral, they should be left out of this work; only specific, simple matters in- 
troduced, bearing upon the subject; and when we take into consideration 
the vastness of the injuries done by insects — how that millions of dollars' 
worth of wheat, fruit, cotton, and other vegetable matter is annually de- 
stroyed — that hundreds of farmers have abandoned the attempt to raise 
plums, and that whole orchards are often ruined by the ravenous bug; and 
that it is an uncommon occurence to-day, in any portion of our vast conti- 
nent, to take up an apple thqi is free from insect injuries. When Professor 

/ 

• / 



2 

Riley &ays that, as a nation, we annually lose by insocts over $100,000,000' 
and Professor Agassiz said, INIore than a lifetime is necessary to enumerate 
and describe the diflerent species of insects! AVhen locusts have been seen 
in Elizabethpol, Russia, so extensive in numbers as to extend over thirty- 
tive squares of verst, and so powerful as to compel a regiment of soldiers 
to "right about face!" When the San Francisco Bulletin says that from 
1873 to 1877 the locust damaged vegetation in that portion of the country 
to the tune of '$300,000,000! "When single individuals, like Professor 
Eiley, have passed over to the National Museum, at "Washington, one 
hundred and fifty thousand specimens! "When Professor Mieger, of Ger- 
many, made a collection of six hundred specimens of flies, and other pro- 
fessors enumerated tv/enty thousand varieties of insects that preyed upon 
the wheat in Austria, Germany, and Russia. AVhen Professor Davidson, 
of San Francisco, has made a collection of sixty thousand insects, and 
Herman Strecker ( a marl)le-worker, of Reading ) has brought together 
and labelled over iifty thousand varieties of the butterflies alone ; and 
the pbyloxera has depopulated whole vineyards in France, and destroyed 
millions of dollars' Avortli of vines' These accumulated statistics cer- 
tainly indicate that the time has po?itively arrived in the history of the 
United States, that Congress should take hold of this extreniely important 
subject with ungloved hauls, and at once make a muniflcent appropria- 
tion for the purpose already described: and right here and now I ]:)ublicly 
protest against entomologists auy longer using the paradoxical word "rem- 
edy,"' as applied to insecticides. This word is in all dictionaries defined 
as a cure — something to heal; to preserve, «S:c. It might possibly be 
twisted to kill: but the idea conveyed by the word is obnoxious to any one 
who is anxious to kill ofi;' insects thus destructive to vegetable life. Now, 
as there are over two hundred and thirty farmers' clubs in the New Eng- 
land States, and over two thousand agricultural societies in the United 
States, and over three hundred and sixty agricultural papers and publica- 
tions, if they will, as a unit, unite in asking Congress, through their rep- 
resentatives, to create a Commissioner of entomology, with duties as above 
referred to. I am satisfied it will soon be brought about. If it does not, 
we must cling together imtil effected. Remember that Morse lumg around 
the city of AVashingtou for a dozen years, imploring aid to put up an ex- 
perimental line of telegraphic w'ires between that city and Baitimoi'e; and 
that many a stupid called him a lunatic while thiis engaged! Remember 
that John C. Cresson and many other citizens of Philadelphia sent a long 
petition to this city, about 1835, praying that the representatives would not 
give a charter to certain persons who wanted to illuminate the city with 
gas; and that the petitioners stated, among other cogent reasons, why it 
should not be granted, that the refuse gas-tar running into the Delaware 
and Schuylkill rivers, would kill the fishes and unfit the water for drinking 
purposes ; and thai the gas in the pipes in the various streets might all be 
exploded at once and destroy the city. 

And less tlian twenty-five years after the time that the petition was for- 
warded to this city, John C. Cresson was president of the gas company so 
objected to. Remember that Obadiah Grose, of Pennsylvania, used hard 
coal in his blacksmith shop in 1768, and that in 1791 Philip Ginter discov- 
ered anthracite coal on the Lehigh, and that Robert Morris bought six hun- 
dred a'-res of this same land in 1802, and formed a company to work it, and 
found a fifty-foot vein of these hidden diamonds ; and yet the time had not 
come to have it appreciated, and they leased it for twenty years to White 
^ Hazard, at an annual renting of an ear of corn; and in 1839, David 



Thomas usea HULniacite rui making pig metal successfully, and the twenty 
ears became worth $20,000,000; and the output of coal in Pennsylvania 
alone was twenty-nine million five hundred thousand tou.-^ in 1882. Don't 
expect any help from the United States Cumuiissioner of Agriculture; don't 
ask for it. Make the applications direct to Congress. 

In 1878, a gentleman accidentally discovered, in Schuylkill county, an 
immence body of decomposed iron pyrites, made up, as you know, from sul- 
phur, alum, and iron, and he sent it to his farming neighbors to use for fer- 
tilizing purposes. Professor Hollenbush, of Ileading, made an analysis of it. 
discovered that a rose bush, that for years had been half dead, revived after 
an application, and bore the next year seventy perfect roses, when less than 
a score of imperfect ones was the annual bearing ]'reviously. In 1880, I 
tested it in a garden and found that a dwarfed peach tree was really over 
full of leaves and fruit at the ?nd of the harvest season, and that bugs of all 
kinds hated it so far as I examined its merit. I then wrote to Commissioner 
Lcring, and stated these facts, and offered to forward a half ton for a nom- 
inal price, so that abundant experiments might be made, and was informed 
by him that he had no power or permission to invest one dollar for the fer- 
tilizer and insecticide. "Commissioner Loring, of the United States Agri- 
cultural Bureau, offered $14,000 in prizes for essays upon various branches 
of husbandry, designing to pay the prizes from the appropriation for ex- 
periments in beet sugar and sorghum culture; but First Comptroller Law- 
rence, of the Treasury Department, apprised the commissioner that the in- 
tended diversion of money without authority of Congress would be illegaL" 

The above communication I cut out of a newspai>er. I was a littla cha- 
gi'ined after reading it, and thinking that my importunities to Mr, Loring to 
invest five or ten dollars in a new fertilizer and insectickle were so singu- 
larly unsuccessful, when there are millions of tons of this compound in 
Schuylkill county, and the great study to-day is to iind the best fertilizers, 
and the simplest method of destroying insects injurious to vegetation, and, 
maybe, these pjTites may turn out yet exceedingly desirable. Scores of 
farmers in the vicinity of tlie uiine, speak of it in the highest terms as a 
fertilizer. 

In 1881, 1 made a personal call upon Mr. Loring in Boston Mass., and told 
him that I had, since 1842, been ci)ih'cting receipts for killing injurious in- 
sects, and that I would place them in book form so they could be disposed 
of for thirty to fifty cents, containing lists and statements concerning 
all known insecticides, provided that he or the Government would render 
some aid. He gave me no encouragement. This Society is aware that 
since the first entomologist was attached to the United States Agricultural 
Department, there has been little or nothing done toward collecting such 
statistics. Professors Glover, Comestock, and Riley, have been studying 
the haunts and habits of insects, and making extraordinary exertions to find 
some new variety, instead of bending all their energies to find methods to 
destroy them. 

Professor Riley's treatise on the potato bug is a masterly production, 
but his numerous pamphlets upon insects are, in the main, worthless, ex- 
cept to regular entomologists, of whom, really experts, there are not three 
hundred in the United States, whereas there are forty millions of men and 
women interested v.pon my theme. 

There are few subjects which have more widely received attention from 
farmers, than the one of ''how shall I get rid of insect pests ?" and the great " 
majority of them have come to the conclusion that they cannot success- 
fully cope with them. No systematic attempt will be made to le^s<:'n thd 



innumerable tliruiip^n»t.il C'ongross doe^ take bold of it. Individual efforts 
here and thercN no matter how well conducted, must end in failures, if their 
neighbors do not act with them. Tlieir Is no doubt but tliat the combined 
intelligence of man is superior to that of the curculio, army worm, locust, 
or borer; but when the enemy is found in such immense; incalculable num- 
bers and varieties, and extends over so vast an area of territory, they can- 
not be annihilated or even decimated only by combined, systematic, me- 
thodical, concerted action; and for a siibject of such vast importance, men 
©f decided talent should be brought together in siitificient numbers to do 
the subject perfect justice and then insects will gradually decrease in num- 
bers, as bears, wolves, foxes, wild turkeys, and other game, have been deci 
mated all over this continent. But the Government must act magnani- 
mously. Suppose it does cost a few^ millions of dollars, see how many mil- 
lions it would save to the people! If this Society will set the, ball a rolling ' 
by publication of this essay or others, a;id distribute them to all similar 
bodies interested upon this matter, it may be the right kind of entering 
wedge. 

It is a singular and unaccountable fact that no book, as referred to 
above, has yet been published in America. "Walsh, long ago, suggested 
the necessity of such a Avork. The work of Harris is altogether too 
voluminous and expensive, and, besides, does not contain one one 
hundredth part of the known insecticides. 

The late work issued by Judd & Company, purporting to have been the 
results of the experiences of many, is the best work ever published, but 
it is only a commencoment, and is altogether too classical and expensive 
for farmers. When the number of insects in the world exceeds all other 
kinds of organic life, of Avhat earthly good is it to publish their separate 
haunts and habits, accompanied by minute microscopical dissections and 
long technical descriptions of them? The farmer who is desirous of 
coping Avith tliem understands as nuich of such jargon as does a freshly 
arrived Esquijnaux of modern civilization. Concerning the above hangs 
a tale. About one year since I corresponded with Judd & Company, on 
the subject of publishing my book as above, and quite at length I de- 
scribed the necessity for such a work. Various answers came to my 
correspondence, requests to send my manuscript, etc., to submit to Pro- 
fessor Riley and other persons, all of which letters I had written at the 
suggestion of the oldest book-dealers in Boston, Mr. Burnham, Mr 
Casino, and other publishers You may judge of my surprise when, some 
months afterward, I learned that Judd & Company had issued a work at 
a cost of two dollars, and under the name of Mrs. Treat; and any one who 
^examines it will see it is in the main the handiwork of Mr. Riley. Look 
at pages sixty-nine and seventy, and you will then see Mrs. Treat referred 
to as any entomological outsider woald be mentioned. They attempted to 
steal a march on me, l)ut it is first, too classical; second, too expensive; 
third, the methods of killing are too few and indefinite. 

£iitoniolo.:iy. 

As already said, the number who have studied the above science and 
Blade themselves known in this country, amount to only a few scores. 
There has occasionally come to the surface men of decided talent, who 
have made herculean efforts to interest the people in so studying the 
haunts, habits, and forms of insects as to outwit them in the race for life. 
The Entomological Society of Philadelphia has been doing good work for 
many years, and have published many volumns of their transactions, la 



1S65 an ontlmsiasl, uauied Professor E. T. CVesson, a luoinbev of ilie above 
society, -with others, started a magazine called tlie '•J*ractical Entomol- 
ogist." It was printed in good style, and lived until 1S08, when its exist- 
ence terminated. The eminent scientist, Benjamin D. AN'alsh, was one of 
its editors. Mr. Fitch, like many other pure philanthropic sons of science, 
worked for years, almost in poverty, to perfect himself in this study and 
to enlarge his collection. At his death his extensive cabinet became neg- 
lected, and was finally broken up and disposed of at a nominal sum, and 
lost to the world. 

It is a carious and unlovely jticture for man to look upon, when he 
was created a little lower than the angels, and Vmrn to rule over all living 
things, especially seen Avhen you look at the really wonderful works of 
man in the Egyptian Pyramids, in the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in the 
ruins of Palestine, Pompeii, Herciilaneum, the tunnels under the Alps, 
etc., yet here is the plain statement ; he is not equal to the task of success- 
fully coping with fragile little insects. But let me again say that I am 
fully satisfied tliat the unsuccessful result is all caused from a lack of 
proper investigation of the facts as herein stated, and a proper selection, 
by our Government, of the I'ight kind of forces. The United States is 
making gigantic strides forward in almost every department of science. 
This one seems to have been sadly neglected. The Government has 
reached that position in our educational growth that new commissions 
should be established to assist every department of manufacture and 
development in all the phases of our national life. You may well be 
astonished when I tell you that in the combined libraries of the city of 
Boston and Cambridge, representing over a million of volumes, I could 
not find one on the subject of my theories, and in the library of the Boston 
Athentioum there were seventy-six works on insects, ^^'e need now, first, 
a General Commissionor, whose duty it shall be overlooking all the others, 
then a Commissioner of Entomology, backed by an ai>pro])riation of half 
a million, to go into the work with a persistent determination to succeed. 
A Commissioner of Agriculture, another of commerce, another of geology, 
whose duty is to assist in the development of the mineral wealth of this 
country, and one on Indian civilization. 

Professor C Y. Kiley says, in the December number of the New York 
AgricuUurist : '"The chinch-bug defies all our efforts when they are in 
full force upon us. AVhen a field of wheat is once overrun with chinch- 
bugs man is (in the majority of cases) powerless before them." Hon. 
G. B. Loring, United States Commissioner of Agriculture, and others, 
made a variety of speeches at Atlanta, Greorgia, November 2, 18S1, which 
are printed in pamphlet form. Among these may be found the assertion 
of Prof. Riley, who said : " The injuries \\L, as a nation, sustain fi'oni 
insect ravages have reached, in a single year, nearly .'?400,(H)0.(K)0." Now, 
to excite an especial interest in the magmitude of our losses, and to hold 
out an unanswerable argiament to our Congress, to take hold of this 
matter, let us briefly see what an enormous sum of money is thus wasted. 
A million silver dollars weigh about thirty-one tons, and thirty-one tons 
multiplied by four hundred millions equal twelve billion four h\indred 
million tons. Now, if a horse, cart, and one ton of silver occupied, on a 
road, fifteen feet in length of space, it would take twelve billion four 
hundred million horses and carts, etc., to carry oft' the above quantity of 
silver, and if the caravan of horses and carts were driven in a single line 
they would reach thirty-five million two hundred and twenty-seven 
thousand two hundred and seventy-two miles, or nearlv one thousand foixr 



hundred and sixty-eight times around onr globe. Prof. Riley does not 
stop with the above weighty statement, but he adds the following 
marvelous one to it: "A female moth of the cotton worm may be the 
mother, in two months, of twenty lijiioii incipient cotton worn.s." In 
1750, Linnreus called the attention of the people to the alarming fact that 
over $600,000 worth of barley was annually destroyed in Sweden alone, 
by insects. The Governor of Tasmania, at Hobartson, exhibited a good 
■ deal of zeal in 1877, and formed a committee to examine and find out the 
best methods of killing the codling moth. 

In 1849, Alexander von Humbolt estimated the number of insects pre- 
served in collections at oetween one hundred and lifty thoiisand and one 
hundred and seventy thousand ; Europe alone being represented by more 
than three times as many species of insects as of phanerogamous plants. 
Ten years ago Dr. Gerstacker estimated the number of species of insects 
to be two hundred and twenty-live thousand — live times as many as the 
known species of all other classes of animals together. If we assume that 
there exists in the whole world only tnree times as many insects as there 
are phanerogamous plants — the latest estimate of which approaches two 
hundi'ed and twenty-live thousand — we arrive at the startling sum of about 
peven hundred and fifty thousand. Bewildering as this estimate appears, 
it is probably too low. The oak alone gives -heller and support to four 
hundred and fifty species of insects, and the pine to more than two hun- 
dred, and one moth alone has thirty-five different species of parasites ! 
"Without going further in our calculations, we may safely assert that if 
the number of species of all other classes of animals should be doubled 
by new discoveries (which is rather improbable for some classes and im- 
possible for the vertebrates), the number of species of insects would be 
more than five times that of a'.l other animals taken together. 

Now, if the Government will only put on a sufficient force to fully study 
this subject they may make many new discoveries in finding sure insecti- 
cides and may find, also, many profitable uses tov the pests. It is well 
known that an expensive business is now done in propagating the silk 
worm for its uses, the cochineal for its coloring properties. The Spanish 
fly for its blistering qualities. The grub of ants for the food of mocking 
and other birds. TJie bed bug is administered by some Homeopathic 
physicians as a cure for fevers, also a powder is made of this nasty insec 
by allopathic physicians to be used in curing chills and fever, and it has 
been administered as an emenagogue, and the Pedicidus capitis has been 
used medically to cure headache, and the spirit of ants is an officinal 
preparation in a German pharmacopceia, and Dr. E. T. Brush, of Mount 
Vernon, gladdens the hearts of his countrymen by publishing the state- 
ment that the largo black ants, so common in the pine forest, will, 
jjroperly prepared, cure scurvy, and that the lumbermen of Maine are 
well aware of this fact, as they always eat them Avhen so affected. 

I repeat, we are an immense country and the onward strides we are 
making are unparalleled, and that now the fitting time has arrived to push 
this important matter. To briefly show another phase of our progress, let 
me say that, in 1754, Benjamin Franklin, was appointed Postmaster 
General of the British Dominions of North America, with permission to 
make $6,000 a year (if he could) out of the postal service, to be paid in the 
continental paper money of that day, and that in 1790, when George 
Washington was the first President of the United States, there were only 
geventy-five postoffiees in all of our country, and now we have so rapidly 



progressed in civilization and scientitic robbery t!iat 81,300,000 a year baa 
been stolen from that departnieut alone for more than ten years, and only 
recently discovered. 

^Vork for the IVew C'oaiuii«.Hioii. 

Insecticide receipts are very commonly found written something like tlie 
following: "Coal tar water is sure to kill potato bugs." Now, the com- 
mission want to take all such receipts, of which their number is very volu- 
minous, and thoroughly test each one. Take, for instance, one ounce of 
coal tar, of a standard strength, to six ounces of water, and apply it to 
scores of various insects, and properly note results, and then finally make 
definite statement of the facts. The following problems should be solved: 
How great a degree of cold will kill insects in general':' How great a 
degree of heat will bring about the same results? What class of insects 
will withstand, without injury, excessive cold? What degree of cold will 
ruin insect eggs? What degree of heat will bring about the same con- 
dition? How long must the eggs, or larva, or the insect be frozen before 
life is extinct? What variety of insects are easiest killed and what clasa 
will the longest withstand cold or heat ? Do bees destroy (by puncturing 
or in any other manner) ripe or uni-ipe grapes? 

PyreilxruiM. 

This plant should receive especial attention; for certainly its power of 
destroying insect life is really remarkable. Some of its properties have 
been known for half a century and more. There are several varieties, and 
they all belong to the chamomile family. I think a careful study of the 
daisies, so numerous in our country, will develop insecticide qualities. 
They sipailate the pyrethrum. For some unaccountable reason. Prof. 
E.'ley has been occasionally urging the readers of his productions to 
believe he was the discoverer of its insecticide qualities. In the Neiv Yorh 
Agricaltunst of April, 1882, is an article on this plant, saying that Prof. 
Riley has had great difHculty in obtaining the seeds to cultivate it and 
test its properties. In another communication published by Prof. Kiley, 
he says he was the first one to bring the insecticide qualities of it before 
\e public; whereas, any one who will examine the IJnited States Agri- 
cdltural reports of 1861, page two hundred and twenty-three, will find the 
pyrethrum Roseum of the Caucasus described fully in a long article, and 
every variety of argument offered to get farmers to grow it and test its 
merits, and other varieties of the pyrethrum are also described the P. 
CinecBria folium, etc. It has been described by many other wx'iters. 
Hanaman and Coch, of Germany, wi'ote about its insect-killing properties 
in 1863, and stated that ' 'Its peculiar virtues were well known long before 
that time." A firm in California (whoso address I will give to any one 
desiring it) have, for several years, been cultivating over eight hundred 
acres of this plant, and supplying it to druggists to sell. In 1848, the 
writer kept a drug store in Providence, Ehode Island, and sold what then 
was merely known as a bug destroyer, which ho obtained from druggists 
in Boston, and they obtained it from Europe. This same powder, under 
a score of names, has been sold by druggists ever since, each druggist 
giving it (if he chose) an especial name. The most common ones were 
Persian and Dalmatian insect powder, several devices have been patented 
to throw it easily and speedily into the haunts of the insects. Some of 
these devices have made immense fortunes to the owners, and durin^ all 



these lapse of years oni* a£yricnltnral eoiniuiss^oncrs liave kept so quiet upoa 
this subject that Prof. Kiley honestly believes himself the introducer of 
this marvelous shrub, and the insects, in general, have had their own Avay 
undisturbed, in the immense destruction of vegetable matter. Let me 
repeat that pyrethrum, as an insecticide, has been well known for yeai's, 
ami that thousands of druggists have been selling it all over the United 
iStates for at least thirty-tive years, under various names, and let me say 
definitely, had the entomologists connected with the agricultural depart- 
ment have shown as much anxiety to tind insecticides as they have new 
vaineties of insects, the seeds of this pyrethrum would have been sent long 
ago into all the States of the Union. It will grow whereever the chamo- 
mile grows, and it is one of the most remarkable insecticides so far known 
to mankind. 

Ciireulio. 

During the years 1861 to 1868 I was a member of the Cincinnati, Ohio, 
Horticultural Society. In August, 18(37, Dr. John Warder, the eminent 
pomologist, and myself, were appointed a committee to visit certain fruit- 
growers in Covington, Kentucky, who had successfully desti'oyed the plum 
curculio, (which for years had ravaged their trees) and succeeded in rais- 
ing an enormous yield of the Dawson and other plums. We first visited 
Mr. J. Bush ; he had some twenty trees which had for many years blos- 
somed freely, formed in part the plum, and drojiped oft" half made with the 
crescent sha|H> sting of the curculio upon each green plum. We found 
his trees loaded with fruit, except two of them, which he purposely neg- 
lected in o^der to test the benefits of his treatment, which was as follows: 
He covered the ground under the tree (to the full extent of the spread of 
the branches) with common marble dust. ^V'herever used the plums were 
intact; where not used no perfect plum was seen. I will not here attempt 
an explanation. We next visited another gentleman who had some fifty- 
five trees, all in good bearing condition for years, but annually visited by 
the curculio, and the fruit destroyed; we there found fifty trees full of 
excellent fruit, and five with none on them in perfect condition. The fifty 
bearing trees were thus treated: As soon as the blossoms appeared, and 
every other morning, until the fruit had formed, wliile the dew was on 
tJiem, he fumigated the whole tree with the smoke of tobacco. He made 
an iron basket, filled it with tobacco refuse stems, placed the basket on a 
pole, and passed the smoking, burning tobacco all around and through the 
branches. Xow, I have introduced these two good results to prove that 
the reason of man is able and sufficient to cope with the instinct of insects,. 
and I again say, to make it more impressive, that, properly handled, the 
question of getting rid, to a very great extent, of insects injurious ta 
vegetation is, or may be solved, — aiid I here must, too, add, that I believe 
fully and candidly that it can be done without recoui'se to the deadly 
poisons, and especially Paris green, and London purple. The first one is 
composed of arsenic and copper, and the last one of arsenic and lime, and 
I sa)^, advisedly, that the sending them through the numerous druggists 
of this country into the thousand homes of the farmei's is cruel and wicked 
in the extreme. If an ounce is divided into four hundred and eighty 
parts, one part is a grain, and one grain of Paris green taken into the 
body by respiration, or into the stomach, or into the body by absorption, 
that is, by handling it, may produce death. I have, since the general 
inti'oduction of these poisons, collected together a very large number of 
cases where men, animals, and birds have been killed through its use. 



9 

Some oilier time I will recite them in detail. Reynold & Co., New York, 
who have sold tons of it, say in their book on the subject "with careless 
handling it is highly dangerous." 

In Packard's BulJeLin No. 4, published by the United States Govern- 
ment in 18S0, he especially advises farmers in general, who are annoyed 
v.'ith a minute Hessian fly, to gather and liread the parasites of this insect. 
Let us criticise this Avise suggestion. There are not tifty really scien 
tific, educc'ited, entomological exports in the whole of the 'United*^ States, 
and there is not one farmer in one thousand wlio is sufficiently acquainted 
with the study as to be able to follow above insiractions, and if thoy could, 
just imagine the farmer with all the necessary paraphernalia to collect, 
keep, preserve, and breed minute parasites, then, imagine them scattering 
them in due season over their wheat-fields to attack and destroy the Ay. 
Carry out the suggestion on a large scale, and attempt so to teacli farmers 
to collect and protect the parasites of one thousand different injurious 
insects, the absurdity becomes more apparent as yoii examine the non- 
sensical proposition. Let me go a little further: Kaltenbach describes over 
five hundred and thirty species of insects injurious to the oak, and over 
three hundi'ed and ninety species injurious to the willow. Now, imagine 
a thrifty fanner with t\YO hundred ficres of land to till, with a few hundred 
oak and willows, studying and collecting at his leisure the parasites of 
these nine hundred and twelve varieties of insect life, and in numei'ous 
books keeping an account of their forms, habits, and pecviliarities, and in 
various boxes and vessels preserving them to (afterwards in due time) mul- 
tiply them to kill off the injurious insects. As a further evidence of the 
titter impossibility of learning farmers the science of entomology, let me 
relate instances which speak for themselves. While residing in Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania, I one day found in the yard back of ray office a slop-barref 
which upon examining, I found alive with maggots. I collected a tabfe- 
fpoonful of them and presented them to Mr. S. h>. Rathvon, who has been 
widely known as an entomologist for many years, lives in Lancaster, and 
tias a large collection of insects. He wrote a long communication on the 
subject of insects, which Avas published in the United States Agricultural 
Keports of 3801. Ho is one of the editors of the Lancaster Farmery and 
'n the next issue stated that the insects handed him were a new species 
»liat he had never before seen. A few months since I found some snaik 
aere in this city that were unlike any I have ever seen ; one of them was 
iearly seven inches long. I sent a dozen of them to Professor Baird, oi; 
:lie Smithsonian Institute at >Yashington, D. C, and up to the present 
vime he has been unable to name or classify them, and can't find any one 
Use Avho can do it. 



OMNIPATHY. 

In 1845, when ready to receive my medical diploma, I wrote the I'ollow- 
ing to my father: "I find the theory and practice of medicine, to be so 
uncertain, so ambiguous and nusatisfactory, that I am unwilling (know- 
ing my inability to cure disease) to receive my sheepskin. I want to go 
into some other honest avocation, or study longer, hoping to learn or dis- 
cover some way of curing the numerous afflictions of the human body. 
The physician I am now studying with has dyspepsia and cannot either 
teach me how to cure it or heal himself." 

My father I'eplied: " Study as long as yon d?sire/' So I became, in six 
years, the student of nine M. D.'s — Alio, Homteo, Hydro, Electro, Thomp- 
sonian. Eclectic, Electric, Mesmeric, &c. — all to no avail, and in the end 
I became fully aware that the stomach and twenty-eight feet of intestines 
were intended as receptacles of food only, to be converted into blood; and 
that a thousand pounds of calomel, quinine, or opium, would not make 
one drop of this life principle — the only creative and curative agency in 
the body — and that by keeping drugs out of the stomach and placing non- 
poisonous remedials on the outside of the body, I could readily increase 
the quantity of healthy blood, and hence cure disease; and for thirty-five 
years I have followed these simple laws, and cured thousands of the 
thoroughly discouraged invalids. I herewi+^^ insert a few of my adver- 
tisements : 

Harrishurg, Pa., Daily Patriot. 
EPILEPTIC FITS. 

Oa the 3d of May, 1883, Mrs. J. L. Yetter, of Bachmansviire, was lying 
in bed waiting for death to end her sufierings. She had consumption, 
dyspepsia, and was generally disabled, reduced to eighty pounds in weight, 
speaking only in a whisper, and for sixteen years she had been having 
terrible fits and had been dosing and drugging her body under lots of 
Alio, and Homteopathic physicians, and taken every kind of advertised 
nostrum. Her husband (a Dunkard) had sent to Colorado for medicine 
for her. All the advertised siire cures for fits wei'e fully tested and found 
to be worthless. Over $1,200 had been spent by Mr. Y. in fruitless efforts 
to find some quack or physician who could tell the truth and cure her. 
Having heard that the sight of his blind neighbor (John Lehman) had 
been restored, Mr. Y. called at my office on the above date, stated his wife's 
cane, how long she had been in bed, etc. I told him if he fully followed 
my directions she could come to see me in thirty days. In a month she 
came into my ctfice, and on the 15th of September was in again. She had 
gained twelve pounds, her voice was restored, her health generally im- 
proved, and she had only one fit in four months. No itinerant, quack or 
regular M. D. in Pennsylvania can report a similar cure. November'Tth 
Mr. Y. called in and said : " My wife has been under your charge six 
months and has had only one fit; has gained twelve pounds in weight; 
can eat anything; drives out in a buggy by herself; you have nearly cured 
her after seventeen other physicians had drugged her almost to death." 

Catarrh cured for 50 cents, The remedy sent anywhere, postpaid, on 
the receipt of 50 cents in stamps. * 

CONSULTATION FEEE. Send for or call and get three pamphlets 
free — one on Catarrh, one of 44 pages, containing many hundreds of 
names of persons cured. 

DR. C. A. GREENE, 35 Years' Experience, 
No. 2'-.^ North Second Street, Harrisburg, Pa. 



11 

Shamokin, Fa., Hivahl. 
OMNIPATHY. 

I claim that di-ugs taken into the stomacl), either in Homceo or Allo- 
pathic doses, that cannot be converted into blood, injures and annoys the 
intestinal organs jnst the same as particles of lime would your eye. I 
claim the exclusive ofliico of these organs is the conversion of food into 
blood, and that this element is the *' Life of the llesh thereof," and makes 
every portion of the body, and that in pure blood thero is no calomel, 
blue pill, quinine or other drugs, hence are foreign substances, when 
placed in the stomuch, as tar would be inside of a watch; and that the 
heart beats 80,000 times a day to force only pure blood through our bodies, 
and that the whole amount goes through our bodies tifteen times every 
hour, and that wo aro constantly growing and decaying, and all the in- 
crease or growth of the body comes from blood, and that one thousand 
pounds of qoinine will not make ono drop of this life principle. 

Have I proved my statements trr.3? In seventee)^ months over 1,700 
persons who had tried the drugging system, have placed themselves under 
my chai'ge. Some, after trying iu v; ia twenty physicians, and under my 
methods, the majority of them are all well, and no deaths among these 
numerous patients, witli only a few exceptions, whereas, under other 
physicians, in this city alono over three hundred and forty pei'sons have 
been buried. Will you toll my of any further tests that I ought to make 
to convince invalids and sick persons ? If you will I will gladly made 
them. I am vezy anxious for the uio;5t searching investigations. 



ffarrisburg (Pa.) Telegraph. 
WARNING. 

Over 3,500 persons have visited my ofiice in 17 months, and they have 
universally made the following statements (with a few exceptions) : I 
have been ill for years. Have been di'ugging myself under various Alio 
and Homeopathic physicians to their heart's content ; have also swal- 
lowed quarts of quack medicines only to tind myself constantly growing 
worse from the maltreatment of my stomach and intestines ; have read 
your pamphlets and there discovered that I am doing all I could to kill 
my body. Shall be glad if you will remove the poisons and drugs from 
my system, and restore my health. Di'. Calderwood, of Tyrone, probably 
the oldest physician in Pennsylvania, has como to this conclusion, and 
has placed himself under my charge, with three others of his family. 

May 3d — Charles Carroll, of Philadelphia, a descendant of a signer of 
the Declaration of Independence, had chronic diarrhoea for a long time — 
was under the care of Dr. Agnew for over a year. Spent $700 — money 
thrown away — improved in two weeks by my methods. 

The distinguished painter of Harrisburg, E. B. Black, iu July told me 
the following : "About a year ago I came under your charge for malaria, 
constipation, dyspepsia, &lc. One of my boys had fits — ^the other skin 
disease and ulcers. I spent a deal of money for years — all getting worse 
instead of better. Spent as high as |16 a month for drugs. We were all 
cured in thirty days, and I have saved over %V27) in a year that I haven't 
paid for medicines ; and still better, we have all been well for the last 
twelve months, and it makes me very cross to know that my friends will 
keep on drugging themselves after hearing my experience." 



32 

I should be very glad to give $100, in gold, to any person who could 
invent some raetliod by which I could overcome the unwillingness of some 
individuals to believe that new discoveries are jiossible in medicine. I am 
so anxious to give away three pamphlets proving the superiority of exter- 
nal applications of remedials over the drugging of the stomach system, 
which is killing mankind everj^where. 

Over 1,700 invalids have placed themselves under my charge since my 
sojourn in Harrisburg. Some of them, having no faith in doctors, had 
been dosing and drugging themselves for many years. The most of them 
are now well and glad that they had sense enough to investigate my claims. 

Ex-Judge Ziegler, of Snnbury, a brother of Uncle Jake, suffered for 25 
years with a horrible skin disease, constipation and indigestion in one of 
its worst forms — i*arely or over had a movement of his bowels without 
using salts, pills, senna, magnesia, or soiue other physic. Was way down, 
discouraged. Came under my charge (without seeing him) on the 18th 
day of April, 1883. f^n CO days he called in to see me for the first time, 
and said my exzema is almost gone, and my bowels are moving every day 
for the first time in a quarter of a century. 

WARNING. — For 35 years I have unceasingly attempted, by advertise 
iients and pamphlets, to stop mankind from killing themselves by the uar 
A dicge and quack medicines. "Won't you read my pamphlets t 



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